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In the past five decades, the global literacy rate among adults has grown from 67 percent in 1976 to 87.7 percent in 2024. In 1976, males had a literacy rate of 74.5 percent, compared to a rate of 56.7  percent among females. This difference of over 17 percent in 1976 has fallen to just seven percent in 2020. 

Although gaps in literacy rates have fallen across all regions in recent decades, considerable disparities remain across much of South Asia and Africa, while the difference is below one percent in Europe and the Americas. Reasons for these differences are rooted in economic and cultural differences across the globe. In poorer societies, families with limited means are often more likely to invest in their sons' education, while their daughters take up a more domestic role. Varieties do exist on national levels, however, and female literacy levels can sometimes exceed the male rate even in impoverished nations, such as Lesotho (where the difference was over 17 percent in 2014); nonetheless, these are exceptions to the norm.